FINANCE DAILY PH

Key events

The White House pool reporter following Biden says that he was interrupted four times by pro-Palestinian protesters.

The president managed to shake off their interruptions and continue his speech, while the crowd drowned them out with chants of “four more years!”

His staff has generally managed to keep such protesters out of Biden’s speeches in recent months, after he was interrupted repeatedly at the start of the year. Nonetheless, opposition to his support for Israel in its war on Gaza is another issue that could sap his support in crucial states. Here’s more on that:

Share

Updated at 19.56 CEST

Biden is now walking offstage with the first lady as Tom Petty’s I won’t back down plays.

Despite dealing with a cough and several interruptions by who appeared to be protesters, Biden pulled off a notably forceful speech that was a far cry from his performance on the debate stage in Atlanta just hours before.

Share

Updated at 20.07 CEST

‘When you get knocked down, you get back up’: Biden tells supporters after shaky debate performance

In comments that came as close as any to addressing his stumbles against Trump in last night’s debate, Biden acknowledged that he is indeed old, but believes he can still beat the former president in the November election.

“I know I’m not a young man, to the state the obvious. Well, I know I don’t walk as easy as I used to, I don’t speak as smoothly as I used to, I don’t debate as well as I used to, but I know what I do know. I know how to tell the truth,” the president said.

He went on:

I know right from wrong. I know how to do this job. I know how to get things done. I know, like millions of Americans, I know, when you get knocked down, you get back up.

Biden then made plain that he believed he can still do the job:

Folks, I give you my word as a Biden, I would not be running again if I didn’t believe with all my heart and soul I can do this job. Because, quite frankly, the stakes are too high.

Share

Updated at 19.55 CEST

Crowd chants ‘lock him up’ as Biden calls Trump a ‘one-man crime wave’

Biden laid into Trump over his many legal troubles, calling him a “one-man crime wave” – and prompting the Democratic crowd to chant “lock him up!”

It harkens back to 2016, when crowds at Trump rallies chanted “lock her up” as he attacked his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton for various alleged violations of the law.

“The only convicted criminal on stage last night was Donald Trump,” Biden said.

“When I thought about his 34 felony convictions, his sexual assault on a woman in a public place and his being fined $400m for business fraud, I thought to myself, Donald Trump isn’t just a convicted felon. Donald Trump is a one-man crime wave.”

“Lock him up! Lock him up!” the crowd chanted.

Share

Updated at 19.34 CEST

Biden says Trump set ‘a new record for the most lies told in a single debate’

Biden has now shifted to last night’s debate, and is attacking Trump for telling what was, in the president’s view, a record number of lies.

“Did you see Trump last night? … It’s sincerely a new record for the most lies told in a single debate,” Biden said.

He continued the attack:

He lied about the great economy he created. He lied about the pandemic he botched, killing millions of people. He closed businesses, he closed schools, losing their homes, people all over this country. America was flat on its back, so I told Trump that it was just one of two presidents in American history who left office at fewer jobs than he started. Herbert Hoover was the other one. That’s why I called him Donald Herbert Hoover Trump.

Share

Updated at 19.29 CEST

The president is going through his staple campaign promises.

And though he’s occasionally coughing, and seems to have been interrupted by protesters at least twice, Biden is generally nailing his lines – something he repeatedly struggled to do when Trump was standing to his right at CNN studios last night.

“We’re going to provide clean drinking water, affordable high-speed internet, quality education for every child in America. We’re going to secure our border and protect legal immigration,” Biden said.

And then a sentence delivered with particular force: “Unlike the other guy, we’re going to stand up to dictators like Putin because America bows to no one, no one, no one ever.”

Share

Biden is at the podium, and greeted the crowd heartily.

“Thank you, North Carolina!” the president bellowed.

Where was this energy last night? On the debate stage he appeared subdued, and often gave crowded answers to Trump or the moderators’ questions. But at this speech so far, he seems more spirited.

Share

Updated at 19.30 CEST

Up next to introduce Biden is Eric Fitts, an educator in the Raleigh area.

“Last night, I watched with pride as President Biden won the debate and put forward … a clear vision for making life better for our families, and Donald Trump made it very clear he’s focused on retribution and revenge,” Fitts said.

“But what amazed me most was that President Biden that we saw last night on the debate stage was the same Joe I had the pleasure of sharing a meal with a few months ago, right in my home, my sons Christian and Carter, when we sat at my dinner table, I was able to share with him how grateful I was for his leadership and for his compassion.”

Share

Updated at 19.31 CEST

Jill Biden is introducing her husband, and implicitly downplaying concerns over his performance against Donald Trump in last night’s debate.

“There is no one that I would rather have sitting in the Oval Office right now than my husband,” the first lady said.

“What you saw last night on the debate stage was Joe Biden, a president with integrity and character, who told the truth. And Donald Trump told lie after lie after lie.”

ShareBiden takes stage in North Carolina for first speech since debate against Trump

Joe Biden is onstage now in Raleigh, North Carolina for his first campaign speech since his shaky performance last night in his debate against Donald Trump.

Jill Biden is revving up the crowd before the president speaks. Don’t go away – we’re covering it live.

Share

Joe Biden is once again late for his speech. As you wait, check out what the Guardian’s Robert Tait and Edward Helmore have learned about how the president’s campaign is dealing with the fallout from his debate last night:

A defiant Joe Biden resisted calls to abandon his re-election effort and step aside for a younger candidate after his calamitous showing in Thursday’s presidential debate with Donald Trump.

As Democrats panicked and openly talked about replacing the president with another nominee, the Biden campaign unequivocally ruled out that possibility.

“Of course he’s not dropping out,” Lauren Hitt, a campaign spokesperson, said on Friday.

Her statement followed Biden’s own resolute comments to downcast supporters shortly after leaving the debate stage in Atlanta. “Let’s keep going,” he told them.

Biden was also said to be planning to return to the debate stage as planned in September, CNN reported on Friday morning, citing an adviser.

Share

Updated at 19.05 CEST

As we wait for Biden to speak, the Washington Post reports that Jim Clyburn, a longtime Democratic congressman from South Carolina who is influential with the president, believes there is no reason for him to exit the race:

Clyburn played a crucial role in re-energizing Biden’s campaign in 2020, when the candidate’s support in the Democratic primaries was flagging:

Share

Updated at 18.48 CEST

Biden to rally in North Carolina amid Democratic panic over debate performance

Hours after his debate with Donald Trump went far worse than expected and made Democrats nationwide even more concerned about his ability to campaign for the presidency at the age of 81, Joe Biden is set to rally supporters in Raleigh, North Carolina, at 12.30pm ET.

Biden is hoping to win the southern state in the November election, but it’s been tough territory for Democrats lately – their Senate candidates have repeatedly lost, Biden is down against Trump in polls of state voters, and Republicans have taken over the state legislature and curbed Democratic governor Roy Cooper’s power.

When he takes the stage, all eyes will, once again, be on how Biden talks and acts, after he repeatedly struggled to articulate his arguments against Trump at the debate at CNN’s studios in Atlanta last night.

An energetic performance could bolster the argument that the president was just having a bad day, albeit at an incredibly important moment. But if he falters onstage in Raleigh, it could heighten his supporters’ anxiety, and give more ammunition to those who argue he must pass the baton to another candidate, if Trump is to be stopped.

Don’t close your browser tab – we’ll be covering the speech live on this blog.

Share

Updated at 18.27 CEST

Plenty of Americans did not watch last night’s presidential debate, and did not personally witness Joe Biden’s struggles, or Donald Trump’s incessant lying and distorting. But many in that group are no doubt digesting headlines from news outlets, indicating the debate did not go well for the president. Here’s more about that, from the Guardian’s Edward Helmore:

US voters woke up to post-debate reviews of the first Biden-Trump debate with headlines that echoed Democrats’ anxiety that the incumbent president is too cognitively weak and physically frail to sustain another five months of political campaigning or another term in office.

Those anxieties, multiple outlets reported, were being reflected in pressure from Democratic donors and former Democratic officials who are now openly talking about replacing Biden with an alternative presidential candidate at the party’s convention in Chicago in August.

“A Fumbling Performance, and a Panicking Party”, said the New York Times on its front page. Columnist Nicholas Kristof, a centrist Democrat, said that Biden is a “good man” who had capped his political career with a successful presidential term … “but I hope he reviews his debate performance Thursday evening and withdraws from the race”.

Kristof floated Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan, Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Gina Raimondo, the US secretary of commerce, as potential candidates “in a good position to defeat Trump in November”.

Share

Updated at 18.26 CEST

The clever folks at Politico dispatched a reporter to a nursing home to find out what its residents thought of last night’s debate against two historically old candidates.

They had plenty of thoughts about Joe Biden’s troubling performance, as well as how Donald Trump behaved. Here’s a snippet:

When Biden, 81, appeared to lose his train of thought and said, inexplicably, “We finally beat Medicare,” Goldberg put her head in her hands again.

“We finally beat Medicare?” she asked.

For Biden, it was a disaster. His allies had seen the debate as his best chance yet to ease concerns about his age, a persistent liability for his campaign. And the perception of older voters – who turn up to vote at higher levels any other age group – is critical to the Democratic president. He lost voters 65 and older to Donald Trump by 5 percentage points in 2020, but is courting them aggressively in the run-up to November.

Nothing his contemporaries saw here Thursday helped his case.

“I think that he is rushing it, and he’s not looking at the camera for the most part,” said Meg Maguire, 81, who was visiting the facility to watch the debate with her husband.

She said, “In terms of just physical relationship to the camera, Trump is doing better,” even if, as she put it, “Trump says garbage.”

“I do think Biden’s age is showing at this debate, and it pains me,” she added.

Goldberg agreed. “I don’t like to see [Biden’s] gaffes, but I don’t like to see Trump going haywire and cockamamie either,” she said.

Share

Updated at 17.49 CEST